Self-actualisation is different from the other levels of need in at least one important respect.

ECONOMIST: Idea

Self-actualisation, at the top of his pyramid of needs, is the state that has most fascinated followers of Maslow.

ECONOMIST: Guru

People who achieve self-actualisation, he maintained, are democratic in outlook, not authoritarian.

ECONOMIST: Guru

This need we may call self-actualisation.

ECONOMIST: Idea

Maslow helped a bit by giving a list of people he felt had reached self-actualisation: Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Albert Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, William James, Albert Schweitzer, Benedict Spinoza and Aldous Huxley, as well as 12 unnamed people alive at the time Maslow did his research.

ECONOMIST: Guru